The present invention relates to a cartridge device for use as a recording medium drive unit in an electronic device, and more particularly to a cartridge device for use as a recording medium drive unit which comprises an assembly of a chassis and an ejection slider slidably supported on the chassis, the assembly being designed for allowing the chassis and the ejection slider to be assembled together with higher efficiency.
There have been recording medium drive units for recording an information signal on and/or reproducing an information signal from a recording medium housed in a case, e.g., a disk-shaped recording medium rotatably housed in a recording medium cartridge.
Some recording medium drive units have a holder for holding a recording medium cartridge, an ejection slider slidably supported on the holder, and an ejection lever angularly movably supported on a chassis. The ejection lever and the ejection slider operate in ganged relation to each other. For details, reference should be made to Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2002-343009, for example.
When a recording medium cartridge is inserted into the holder, the recording medium cartridge turns the ejection lever in a first turning direction, moving the ejection slider in a first sliding direction. The movement of the ejection slider causes the holder to move into contact with the chassis. A recording medium housed in the recording medium cartridge which is held by the holder is placed on a disk table, whereupon the loading process is completed.
The recording medium cartridge is ejected as follows: When the ejection slider is moved in a second sliding direction which is opposite to the first sliding direction, the holder is displaced away from the chassis to release the recording medium from the disk table. The movement of the ejection slider in the second sliding direction angularly moves the ejection lever in a second turning direction which is opposite to the first turning direction. The ejection lever now pushes the recording medium cartridge out of holder.
The above recording medium drive units are required to position the ejection slider and the ejection lever in alignment with each other for loading and ejecting the recording medium cartridge properly. Since the ejection slider is supported on the holder, the holder on which the ejection slider is supported is assembled on the chassis to keep the ejection slider and the ejection lever in positional alignment with each other.
In the recording medium drive units, after the ejection slider and the ejection lever have been positionally aligned with each other, various adjustments need to be made which include a skew adjustment for an optical pickup for recording an information signal on and reproducing an information signal from the recording medium. Because the holder has already been assembled on the chassis, it is necessary to insert a jig or the like from the holder to perform the adjustments. Therefore, the existence of the holder makes the adjustments difficult to perform or tedious and time-consuming.
One solution would be to form a large hole in the holder for the insertion of the jig therethrough. However, the large hole in the holder tends to reduce the mechanical strength of the holder and also to make the shape of the holder complex, resulting in an increase in the cost of the recording medium drive units.